PPSA’s Year-End Review: Ups and Downs for Surveillance Reform

​This was the year the surveillance reform coalition finally made it to the legislative equivalent of the Super Bowl. As we noted earlier in the year, “We won’t be taking home any Super Bowl rings, but we made a lot of yardage and racked up impressive touchdowns.”
 
The calls and emails you made to Congress appealing for privacy and surveillance reform had a big impact. The warrant requirement for FISA Section 702 data failed in the reauthorization vote for this surveillance authority in April. But in the past, such reform measures usually failed by a wide margin. This time we fell short by a single vote, resulting in a tie, leading to a loss on an amendment to Section 702 reauthorization that would have added a warrant requirement.
 
The reform coalition did achieve several notable victories.

• We persuaded Congress to move the next reauthorization of Section 702 from five years to two. The next reauthorization debate will take place in April next year – keeping it from getting lost in the press of late business. So the reform debate will begin in earnest with the convening of the 119th Congress.

 

• A reform amendment from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) passed. The FBI will now be under a microscope, with quarterly reports to Congress on the number of times the FBI searches, “or queries,” the communications of Americans in Section 702 databases (which was enacted by Congress to enable foreign surveillance). Rep. Roy’s measure also allows the leaders of both Houses of Congress and the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees to attend hearings of the secret FISA Court.

 

• Thanks to an amendment offered by Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA), Congress permanently ended “abouts” collection – the practice of surveilling Americans who are merely mentioned in a communication.

 

• Soon after the Section 702 debate, the House passed The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act on a strong bipartisan 219-199 vote. This bill requires the FBI and other federal agencies to obtain a warrant before they can purchase Americans’ personal data, including internet records and location histories. Passage in the House gives a mark of validation to this bill, making it easier for the bill’s Senate champions to enlist their colleagues to support it in the 119th Congress.

 

• In January, the House passed the Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act. This should set up the PRESS Act for easy passage again in the House and a more fulsome debate in the Senate this year.

The biggest disappointment of the year was the failure of Congress to live up to its promise to narrow the “Make Everyone a Spy” provision attached to Section 702 reauthorization. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, asked his colleagues to vote for this measure that would require any business that provides “communications services” – such as free Wi-Fi – to secretly hand over the communications of their customers. He did this as a part of the deal to secure 11th hour reauthorization of Section 702.
 
But Sen. Warner’s promised narrowing of this provision – believed to be a restriction to providers of cloud computing services – never happened. This reform was blocked in the House and failed in the Senate late in the year. Even here, we see a silver lining. Going back to Section 702, had every House Member who supported reform been in attendance, surveillance reform would have easily prevailed. With widespread frustration at the bait-and-switch on the “Make Everyone a Spy” provision, and the tie-breaking vote killing warrants, surveillance reformers will be loaded for bear through April 2026, when Section 702 is once again up for reauthorization.
 
Certainly, surveillance reform is winning the attention and agreement of the American people. We reported on a recent bipartisan YouGov poll shows that 80 percent of Americans support warrant requirements. We sense a gathering of momentum – and we look forward to preparing for the next big round in April 2026.
 
While making our case in Congress, PPSA has also been busy filing lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to unearth the domestic surveillance of the intelligence agencies.

• We took the “alphabet soup” of intelligence agencies – from the CIA to the FBI, and NSA – to court in December for ignoring their legal obligations to conduct searches likely to produce documents responsive to our requests. If successful, this lawsuit will shed light on how the government acquires Americans’ private digital information.

 

• PPSA also recently sued the Department of Justice and the FBI, taking them to task before a federal judge for sending FOIA requesters on a "scavenger hunt” for documents.

 

• PPSA in October submitted a series of FOIA requests seeking critical information on how law enforcement and intelligence agencies handle data obtained by cell-site simulators, which can trick your cellphone in to giving out your personal data.

 

• Before the election, PPSA gave voters our Scorecard of every Member of Congress, grading each Member’s votes for or against surveillance reform on an “A” to “F” scale.

 
PPSA also communicated the essentials of surveillance issues to the American people in understandable terms. For example:

• In April, PPSA’s general counsel Gene Schaerr joined Liza Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security program in a video podcast interviewing journalist Byron Tau, author of Means of Control.
  
  
• Over the summer, PPSA’s Senior Policy Advisor, Bob Goodlatte, former Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, teamed up with Gene Schaerr in July to respond in Just Security to a number of anti-reform pieces by former intelligence officials. What they said could be a leitmotif for 2025: “For the sake of national security, the intelligence community must take stock of the underlying reasons why it is losing the trust and goodwill of the American people and their representatives in Congress.”
  ​
• PPSA’s website and more than 225 plain-language blogs on surveillance issues attracted 18.9 million visitors in 2024.

 
Expect 2025 to see a fast-moving, rollicking debate on surveillance reform. To be a part of our effort and connected to breaking events, sign up for free membership in PPSA.

DONATE & HELP US PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS